This invention relates generally to an electrostatographic printer and copier, and more particularly, to a cleaning brush containing long sweeper fibers to prevent toner droppings from surfaces such as the cleaner housing with little increase in toner emissions.
Photoreceptor cleaning brushes are usually located inside cleaner housings. The gap between the inner wall of the housing and the tips of the brush fibers is usually less than 1 mm. As untransferred toner on the photoreceptor surface is collected by the brush, very often, it is deposited onto the housing wall. When this build up is sufficiently high, toner particles detach from the wall and emissions and toner droppings from the cleaner housing are created causing contamination around the cleaner and on the photoreceptor surface. Elimination of the toner build up on the inner wall of the housing would prevent toner accumulation.
The following disclosures may be relevant to various aspects of the present invention and may be briefly summarized as follows:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,354,607 to Swift et al. discloses a static eliminator device that includes a nonmetallic pultruded composite member having a plurality of conductive carbon fibers provided within a polymer matrix of thermosetting resin, wherein the plurality of carbon fibers are oriented within the polymer matrix in a longitudinal direction of the pultruded composite member and extend continuously therethrough. The pultruded composite member has at least one laser fibrillated end including a brush-like structure of densely distributed filament contacts formed from an exposed length of the carbon fibers for contact with the surface. The brush-like structure has either a straight edge configuration or a shaped configuration. The static eliminator device may include a base member for holding the pultruded composite member, wherein the base member electrically communicates with the plurality of conductive fibers to permit the electrical charge to pass therefrom. The static eliminator device utilizes a plurality of the pultruded composite members attached to the base member, each having a rod shape, or a single pultruded composite member having a planar shape. Alternatively, the static eliminator device may essentially be of single piece construction, wherein the pultruded composite member is planar in shape.